MORGANTOWN — When the West Virginia University football team huddles together before each game, a big guy with a big voice speaks up.
Sixth-year offensive guard Ja’Quay Hubbard holds court. There isn’t a lot of preparation in what he says. He just wants his teammates dialed into the task ahead.
“I just wing it,” Hubbard said. “Kind of just wherever we’re at, I just try to … I don’t really call it a pregame speech or nothing like that. I just try to address just where we are and just get in touch with reality before we go to battle with our brothers.”
This is a role Hubbard has grown into, just like all the other roles he has taken for the Mountaineers in his career. His coaches say there’s a reason his teammates listen, and it goes beyond what he does on the playing field. The players listen, they said, because of who he is as much as how he plays.
Hubbard’s journey to this point is what WVU coach Neal Brown calls “the road less traveled.” One could also consider Hubbard’s road to now one with plenty of twists and turns. He went from a top-50 offensive tackle prospect and a University of Virginia freshman in 2019 to a project player as a WVU transfer in 2020.
In Morgantown, he went from backup offensive tackle in 2021 to starting offensive tackle in 2022 to part-time starting guard in 2023 to full-time starting guard this year.
It was last season that Hubbard started to make more of an impact with his voice.
“I think it kind of came about last year at the beginning of the season where I was rotating a little, and I just really wanted to maximize my role on the team,” he said.
He remembers a game where he didn’t like the team’s body language coming out of the Mountaineer Man Trip, and he felt something needed to be said.
“I just kind of took it upon myself to talk to the guys,” he said. “And then, following that game, I think some of the guys called me up to speak and replicate it. And I think it just kind of became a thing.”
Hubbard said he had been someone to talk to the team before games ever since starring at Sharpsville High School in Pennsylvania. Yet that was different, he said. It was more scripted and less from the heart. Now, he offers a piece of real talk before the Mountaineers lineup against their foes.
Hubbard’s play has helped him emerge as a leader. He started 11 games at tackle as a redshirt sophomore, started four of the 12 games he played last season and has started every game this season at right guard. He earned the team’s Blue Collar Award twice last season, against Cincinnati and Baylor.
Brown said all the work Hubbard put in to get to this point is what has put him over the top as someone whose word his teammates heed.
“You can look at him,” Brown said. “There’s before pictures and after pictures, and how he’s changed his body is really remarkable.”
Hubbard was a 400-pound freshman at Sharpsville who, while a high school standout, knew he needed to remold his body to catch the eye of major colleges. His off-field work continued in Morgantown, cutting down from 335 pounds upon his arrival to 322 pounds this year. He also has been named to the Big 12 Commissioner’s Honor Roll and already graduated in May with a bachelor’s degree in communications studies. He’s currently pursuing a master’s in sport management.
“From where he came from to where he’s at … he’s earned the respect of his teammates with the work he’s put in, how he’s changed his body and changed, really, his trajectory of his life when football’s over. So that’s why he can do it.”
Offensive coordinator Chad Scott added that Hubbard’s demeanor is another trait that draws his teammates to him.
“It’s his consistency in the way he works, the way he carries himself, the way he goes about his business,” Scott said. “He’s here early, stays late. He does extra all the time. He goes over and beyond all the time. He’s consistent in his actions and his mood. His attitude is always the same.”
Hubbard wants his voice to help WVU bounce back from some tough times. The Mountaineers entered Saturday’s contest at Arizona on a two-game skid, and in order to snap that streak and get back to their winning ways, they need to stick together. That spirit, he said, makes a bigger difference than any game plan.
“When you really care for the guy next to you and you really have a purpose for why you play,” Hubbard said, “all the other stuff kind of goes out the window.”
— Story By Derek Redd
